From the mailbox:
This is about long forms of possessive adjectives like mío/a, tuyo/a, etc., which change with the number and gender of the nouns they refer to. ... Applying this rule, if a man wants to say "my love" to his wife/daughter, he should say it in Spanish using long form of possessive adjective, amor mío because amor is masculine noun. Honestly, I differ with this because what that man is actually referring to is a "feminine form" (wife/daughter) of masculine noun amor. ... My personal opinion is, in case of abstract nouns an exception to the above rule would be in order and in conformity with the "true spirit" of the same rule. One (whether a man or a woman) should say "amor mío" when referring to masculine objects/subjects and "amor mía" when referring to feminine objects/subjects irrespective of the fact that amor by itself is masculine noun. ...
I would really appreciate your time and efforts to let me know your take on this. [Letter abbreviated and links added.]
Believe me when I say there are times I wish the Spanish language were different than it is! I'm sure that's true for many. But the fact is that amor is a masculine noun regardless of whom it refers to, and it always takes a masculine adjective. So like it or not, the women in my life are amores míos to me.
But amor isn't the only noun whose grammatical gender doesn't have to match the sex of the person it refers to. Most notably, I'm una persona, as are all other male humans. Here are a few other examples I've drawn from current Spanish-language online sources:
- William Levy es la estrella más cotizada de Hollywood. William Levy is the Hollywood star most in demand.
- Faith Hill fue adoptada cuando era un bebé. Faith Hill was adopted when she was a baby.
- Hayden Panettiere afirma que Paris Hilton "es un genio del marketing." Hayden Panettiere states that Paris Hilton "is a marketing genius."
- Barack Obama es la continuación de George Bush. Barack Obama is the continuation of George Bush.
Similarly, you can say things such as "eres un ángel" (you're an angel) or "eres un desastre" (you're a disaster) to females as well as males. And numerous other nouns can be applied to people of both sexes: la viva imagen (the spitting image), la víctima (the victim), una basura (a piece of garbage), just to name a few.
So while it's true that grammatical gender generally coincides with biological gender, it doesn't have to.
Comments
In fact, it’s worth noting that grammatical gender originally had nothing to do with biological gender at all. It’s only through quirks of phonetics and grammar over the centuries or millennia that it came to be associated with biological gender in many languages. From there the distinction remained because it’s rather convenient (e.g. having both “him” and “her” lets you distinguish two people while still using monosyllabic pronouns). It’s funny because a lot of people seem to think grammatical gender came to be because people thought there were inherently “masculine” or “feminine” qualities in everyday objects and that things just took off from there, but in fact it’s all really just coincidence.
It’s often been said that grammatical gender even in today’s languages has to do not with the gender of the object but the gender of the noun. That’s more true in some languages than in others — if an Italian gave you water to drink, he’d probably say “prendi questa”, using the feminine (to agree with “acqua”) even if the noun “acqua” hasn’t been said — but I think it applies well enough to Spanish (where one would probably say “toma esto”, using the neuter).
By the way, I don’t think “quoted” is the best translation for “cotizada” here. At first I thought of quotation as in lines from movies or interviews, but going by the Oxford Spanish Dictionary and Diccionario Clave, the word seems to deal strictly with value and demand.
Excellent point about grammatical gender. For people learning the language, it’s a bit unfortunate that we’ve given the labels “masculine” and “feminine” to the two categories. In many cases, we’d be better off calling them Category O and Category A or something like that.
Regarding FurryKef’s note #2, and the questioning of use of cotizar to mean “quote”in the context which it is used – William Levy es la estrella más cotizada de Hollywood. William Levy is the most quoted Hollywood star., – I agree…that is, Citar (citada) might be a much better choice. Cotizar carries more the sense of “to quote a price” … rather than “to cite”, which is the sense of Citar.
For native English speakers it may be another case of:
La máquina no funciona INSTEAD OF La máquina no trabaja.
De acuerdo con McFarlane: Citada en vez Cotizada
To anyone who is just reading this for the first time: A couple of the comments above are in reference to mistranslation of mine (yes, I’m guilty as charged) that I have since corrected. To keep readers from getting confused, I usually delete comments about errors that I have fixed (or any content that’s no longer there for any reason), but I’ve left these here because they make a good point about a word that’s easy to misuse because of its translation. So if some of the comments above don’t make sense, it’s because they refer to something that’s no longer there.
Gerald:
Con respecto al uso de “amor mio”. Tengo 68 anos hablando castellano y nunca escuche o utilice “amor mia”. Por que no piensa usted mejor que la expresion “amor mio” es una expresion idiomatica y que “amor mio” simplemente no existe? Y que tiene que ser tomada como es, como la mayoria de las gentes que hablan castellano lo usan. En ingles ustedes tambien tienen algo que me pareceria deberia cambiarse pero lo respeto por esa gran mayoria que la da soporte. Cualquier cambio tiene que ser lo que la mayoria manda.
Gracias
RE: Cotizada
Might ’sought-after’ be a good choice — along the lines of in-demand, valued or esteemed — as some of you pointed out?
Thanks.
Re: Cotizada
Just a thought. Might you have been thinking of the similar-sounding “codiciada” (coveted) instead? To me, that seems to fit better with the translation “in demand” which you give.
Re: Gender
When the noun for an animal is feminine (such as ballena, foca), how is the male of the species identified? After some research I think the answer is “la ballena macho,” but I would appreciate confirmation or correction. Similarly, I suppose “the female gorilla” is “el gorila hembra.” (”Gorila” is masculine, another exception to the usual gender rule.)
@Ron,
RE: Gender
For whatit’s worth, let me point out a link that may answer part of your question.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_nouns
I hope this helps.
The french have solved the problem neatly,it’s always mon amour!
The French have solved the problem neatly,they say”mon amour”to both males and females!
And in Spanish, mi amor is more common as well. In real life, it wouldn’t cross my mind to use amor mío.
Regarding animals, the grammatically proper way of distinguishing male and female is to add macho or hembra afterward.
In everyday speech, however, it isn’t unheard of for the gender to depend on the sex of the animal.
Some animals have different names for male and female, such as toro and vaca or elefante and elefanta.
This would be a good subject to write a quick lesson on next week, so be on the lookout for it.
Regarding cotizar, that was the verb used in the original Spanish and my brain stumbled when I was typing the English translation. (For my examples, I often “borrow” and/or modify sentences from all over the place so that I’m using genuine Spanish rather than arbitrarily making up phony text.) And as is often the case, any number of translations would work for cotizada when referring to a person — “sought after,” “in demand,” “valuable,” “wanted,” even “liked.” But not “quoted” (unless he were for sale!). That’s why translation is often more of an art than a science.
SG,
You are indeed wise to acknowledge our own human imperfections; and likewise, recognize the challenge in doing translations. I take my hat off to you.
Life would be quite dull were we right all the time. Where’s the challenge in that?
Thank you for being typically human.
El problema con los idiomas es que no vemos más allá de nuestras narices y tendemos a comparar… Su lógica para cambiar la idisincrasia española me alucina. A ver si nos entendemos, si usted dice de un hombre o planta o mineral:”La víctima murió ahogada” el hombre no se habrá convertido en transexual, no se preocupe. Da igual el uso del posesivo… La persona es el AMOR en sí y sería totalmente asintáctico, además de que la idea romántica no sería tal.
Un saludo.